Jury finds man guilty of murder in officer's slaying

(Nuccio DiNuzzo/ Chicago Tribune)

Margarita Valadez, mother of Chicago Police officer Alejandro Valadez wipes away tears during the words of her daughter Brenda Valadez who is also a police officer speaking to the media ollowing the verdict at 26th and California , Wednesday night.

Margarita Valadez, mother of Chicago Police officer Alejandro Valadez wipes away tears during the words of her daughter Brenda Valadez who is also a police officer speaking to the media ollowing the verdict at 26th and California , Wednesday night. ((Nuccio DiNuzzo/ Chicago Tribune))

Ryan HaggertyTribune reporter

A Cook County jury tonight convicted a reputed gang member charged in the 2009 murder of a Chicago police officer.

After deliberating for nearly 2 1/2 hours, the jury found Shawn Gaston, 22, guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the fatal shooting of Officer Alejandro “Alex” Valadez, 27.

The verdict was read about 9:06 p.m. in a courtroom packed with Valadez's family, friends and fellow officers.

Gaston, wearing a black button-down shirt and with his dreadlocks in a ponytail, watched without expression as the jurors filed into the courtroom before delivering the verdict. He looked at his family after the verdict was read, his expression unchanged.

Many of Valadez's relatives were crying softly throughout Wednesday's closing arguments. Their sobbing became louder after the verdict was read, and they hugged and cried in the hallway as people filed out of the courtroom.

A short time later, Valadez's sister Brenda, who is also a Chicago police officer, told a group of reporters that her family is happy Gaston was convicted but is still devastated by her brother's killing. The pain is worst, she said, when she thinks about her brother's son.

“My nephew, who was born three months after my brother was murdered, will never know what his daddy's hugs and kisses feel like,” Brenda Valadez said, surrounded by her parents, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, and dozens of other relatives and police officers.

“His daddy will not be there on his first day of school. His daddy will not be there to cheer him at T-ball or guide him through life and share all those wonderful memories that wonderful and loving fathers share with their sons.”

Prosecutors have said that Gaston was out for revenge early on June 1, 2009, after he and other alleged gang members were shot at by rivals in the 6000 block of South Hermitage Avenue. Valadez was investigating that shooting when Gaston and the others allegedly returned in his mother's car a few minutes later and fired several shots, killing Valadez, prosecutors said.

Valadez's partner, Officer Thomas Vargas, testified last week that he dove to the ground when he heard the shots and saw Valadez fall after he was hit. Vargas was not injured.Two co-defendants also charged in the murder will be tried later.

Earlier Wednesday, Gaston's attorney suggested to jurors that his client was the victim of a widespread police conspiracy to frame him for the shooting, calling him “a good kid.”

“They're not telling the truth,” attorney John Paul Carroll said during closing arguments. “Something is going on here.”

But Alvarez, personally prosecuting the case, countered that the evidence -- not a conspiracy -- tied Gaston to Valadez's killing.

“This is not CSI,” Alvarez told jurors in reference to the popular TV series. “This is not some murder mystery movie. This is Chicago. This is Englewood. This is reality.”

On Tuesday, prosecutors played a 20-minute videotaped statement from Gaston in which he admitted firing from a car “like, four times.” Prosecutors acknowledged that Gaston was not told that a police officer had been shot before he made his admissions.

Gaston said in the recording that they then ditched the gun under a porch and parked the car near his mother's house a few blocks from the shooting. He was at a party on his neighbor's porch drinking tequila about an hour later when police arrested him.

Police later found three guns -- a .357-caliber revolver, a .40-caliber handgun and a rifle -- in the car's trunk, prosecutors said. The shots that struck Valadez were fired from the revolver, prosecutors said.

Before closing arguments, Carroll had continued questioning police witnesses Wednesday about whether they followed proper procedure in their investigation of the murder. He suggested that the guns found in the car could have been planted after the vehicle was towed to a police garage.

Carroll had also challenged the testimony of the doctor who performed the autopsy on Valadez, arguing that the path of the bullet after it struck his head proves that it could not have been fired from the car.

Alvarez dismissed Carroll's implication that the shots were fired from another location and also said Valadez's police star, bulletproof vest and duty belt should have made it obvious that he was a police officer.

“It's clear that this man either knew or should have known that Officer Valadez was a police officer that night when he decided to shoot,” she said.